


Silence and the Sharp Unpitying Stars

by Northland



Category: Dark Is Rising Sequence - Susan Cooper
Genre: Gen, Memories, Misses Clause Challenge, Montreal, Snow, Winter, Yuletide 2012
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-21
Updated: 2012-12-21
Packaged: 2017-11-21 20:23:41
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/601712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Northland/pseuds/Northland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jane leaves England, but carries something with her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Silence and the Sharp Unpitying Stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skiming](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skiming/gifts).



“Not going home for Christmas, Jeannine?”

Mariève’s question was well-meant -- Canadians nearly always meant well, Jane had decided -- but it still hurt. This year she hadn’t been able to stretch her graduate student’s budget to cover airfare back to England, and so her second winter in Montreal would be her first Christmas here.

She said as much to her performance seminar partner, who looked appropriately sympathetic and invited her to a reveillon she and her flatmates were holding on Christmas Eve. Mariève invited everyone to everything, but she was kind, and Jane accepted.

Sometimes Jane still wasn’t sure how she’d ended up in another country, thousands of miles and an ocean away, to study music. There was no lack of conservatories in the UK, after all. But she’d wanted to leave, to go far away. More and more over the last few years she’d felt as though a weight were pulling her shoulders down. She didn’t know why, or why certain places -- mountains, or the seashore -- made it heavier. Canada had made the burden a little lighter because nothing here was like the landscapes that wrung her heart.

But none of that changed the fact that she missed her family, especially at this time of year. Simon would be drowning in prep for his last year of med school, Barney snapping photos for the string of freelance jobs that paid enough to let him work on his art photography as well. Mum would be putting together her annual holiday exhibit, and her father calmly dealing with flu season chaos in his surgery. But they’d all gather in London by Christmas Eve, only four days away...

Jane sighed, pulled her scarf up to protect her chin, and headed out into the cold darkness. Her flatmate had already left for Edmonton and she’d be alone for the next week. Mariève’s invitation was starting to seem like a better idea every moment.

*

In the morning Jane woke to a city smothered in snow, with the weight of more to come hanging in the clouds. The world was pale and quiet. Even the few cars passing on the street three stories below were muffled. Montrealers were used to snow, but in this it looked like most of them were staying put.

Jane wiped away the fog of her breath from the window and looked up at the dark bulk of Mont Royal. Classes were over for the term, and she’d have plenty of time later today for practice. Maybe she’d climb up to the outlook on the hill first. She’d been there several times in the summer, but she’d yet to see what it looked like in winter.

The sidewalks had been cleared recently enough that the night’s snow wasn’t too much of an impediment. The styrofoam crunch of snow under her boots still made her smile. She passed a few other walkers on Peel, anonymous in eye-high scarves or balaclavas, and at the base of the park one person on skis called out “Je passe!” as they whiffed by her, arms pumping.

She took the stairs up the hill rather than the longer, roundabout path. They hadn’t been cleared yet and she’d have to watch her footing, but Jane was tempted by the sense of openness they gave her as she could see through the bare trees to the city below.

Each branch in the wood, down to the thinnest twig, was furred in a soft coat of hoarfrost. The interlacing patterns of white and black were dizzying. Eyes, a mouth - it almost seemed like a face woven of wood was gazing at her out of the wood... Jane’s foot slid on the loose snow and when she looked back, it was gone.

At the lookout path she turned off and shuffled through the calf-high snow covering the terrace. No other tracks marked the smooth surface; it looked as soft and welcoming as a down quilt. The pale clouds hiding the sun diffused its light and made the whole sky glow.

Jane panted her way over to the stone railing and looked out across the city. Close below she could pick out the university buildings and the roof of her own apartment block. Downtown’s buildings were blocky pillars of concrete exhaling plumes of steam like her own breath. Farther away the frozen Saint Lawrence was a tarnished mirror, scoured clean of snow by the wind blowing across its surface.

A chickadee erupted from a bush down the slope nearly at her feet, shaking show from branches. Jane watched the dark arrow of its flight dart into another tree and wondered what had startled it. Her toes were starting to tingle from standing still and frost was forming on her eyelashes. Time to turn back for home.

She looked back toward the view again, but the city was gone. So was the railing. Jane stumbled in surprise, and windmilled her arms to stop herself from what would have been a nasty tumble down the steep slope into the brush.

The buildings were missing. No dark line of concrete stitches marked the bridges across the river. Instead there were trees, and more trees, and snow, and -- Jane squinted -- at the bottom of the slope, not far from where she’d talked to Mariève yesterday, a ragged oval fence surrounded long dark buildings from which feathery spirals of smoke rose in the still air.

She turned around and looked up the hill behind her. The stone chalet was gone as well. Only more bare trees cloaked in snow rose up the hillside to where the metal cross ought to be glowing with electric light, but wasn’t.

Jane squeezed her hands together tightly, barely able to feel the grip through her thick mittens. The familiar, anxious weight was crushing her skull, and she shut her eyes, hoping to see the ugly cross when she opened them again. But it still wasn’t there.

She wished, suddenly and desperately, for Will Stanton. But why? Short, placid Will didn’t belong here any more than she did. Jane didn’t know how she knew that this wasn’t her time -- well, the complete absence of the city was a clue, but other than that everything was exactly the same. The same snow, the same translucent sky, the same interlocking puzzle of branches and the same chickadee whistling.

The wind rose, pushing through the trees and stirring branches. A sifting of dislodged snow fell into Jane’s hair, and she brushed it out of her eyes. The chickadee whistled again from its new shelter.

Montreal was back; its grey buildings filled most of her view. Jane kept her eyes carefully focused on them and hardly dared to blink on the long walk home.

*

In her dream that night, Jane stood again on the plateau overlooking the city.

The Chalet was still missing. In its place were a pair of doors taller than those of a cathedral. They were carved in geometric designs and looked old, ruinously old. And nothing supported them or stood behind them that Jane could see - only more snow rising to the top of Mont Royal. It was so much like her vision that morning that she shivered.

The doors slowly folded open, with a faint fall of music. Jane’s conscious mind didn’t recognize the melody, but she found herself humming absently along as she stepped through the doorway.

Inside was a hollow echoing space of stone: floor, roof and walls. All radiated a cold that stung her cheeks and numbed the soles of her feet. In the centre of the room stood a great circle of iron bearing thirteen tall candles. They were pure white, whiter than beeswax, and burned with a cold blue flame. Jane shivered again.

Beside the candles was a woman dressed in white with long dark hair that fell to her knees. Her blue eyes were bright. She was young, younger than Jane had ever seen her -- but then Jane blinked. When had Jane seen this woman before? For she couldn’t know her, and yet somehow she did.

“You don’t belong here,” Jane said with a certainty that surprised her.

“Now that I am outside Time, I may go when and where I please, if only in dreams. And there is old memory in snow,” the woman murmured, almost to herself.

“But not for me,” Jane snapped, suddenly angry without knowing why. “Not for any of us.” She shook her head, pushing her tangled hair back from her face. The gesture nudged something else free in her, and she looked at the woman’s hands. On one of her fingers glowed a great ruby ring, the only warm colour in the room. “Who are you?”

The dark-haired woman smiled. “We have met before. Like calls to like, in some ways, and I too have been called Jenny, Jana, Juno, Jane. But you were introduced to me as the Lady.”

The weight of memory folded over Jane as she recognized the woman in front of her at last. She felt an impulse to curtsey and stifled it. “You were Will’s Lady, but never mine. I’m not an Old One.”

“You should not remember that, even here.” Her blue eyes widened. “Those memories were taken from you.”

“And we didn’t agree to that. You didn’t ask us!” Nor did Gummerry, and that hurt more. He at least ought to have known that they could be trusted. And Will -- Jane was so filled with rage at him that she nearly choked on it. How could he tell himself that it was all right to lie to them? What did he think would happen as they aged and he didn’t -- or was he planning to make them forget him too?

“They only sought to spare you pain,” the woman said softly.

“Well, they can’t. None of you can. You should know that it’s hurting us not to remember!” To her shame, Jane’s voice cracked, but she held the gaze of those blue eyes until they looked away.

“I no longer have any power in this world.” The woman -- Jane stubbornly refused to grant her any other title -- sounded sorrowful. Which meant nothing. Jane’s head bowed and her shoulders sagged under the burden of unreachable memory again. She wondered if it would drive her mad in the end.

The woman reached out and rested her hand bearing the rose-coloured ring on the crown of Jane’s head. It was warm in the icy air. “But whatever constraint I laid upon you, I may remove. From now on, Jane Drew, it will be your choice to remember or to forget.”

The fierce blue candle flames faded into the colour of her eyes.

*

In Wales, Will Stanton sat by the fire, playing with the hound Gelert’s ears, and listened to Bran tell all the news of the farm. In London, Simon and Barney argued amiably over the lunch table while their parents did the same.

And three thousand miles away in another winter, Jane opened her eyes to rippling light reflected on her ceiling from sun off snow -- and remembered.

**Author's Note:**

> If the phrase “There is old memory in snow” seems familiar, that’s because it comes from Robert Holdstock’s fantasy novel _Lavondyss_. The title is from Archibald Lampman’s sonnet [“Winter Evening”](http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poems/winter-evening).


End file.
